A team of scientists at MIT have created a device that transforms brackish seawater into clean drinking water at the push of a button—and can be especially helpful for people living in seaside places like California who are dealing with climate change-fueled droughts.
The new desalination device (a term used to describe a machine that can remove salt from seawater) is roughly the size of a suitcase, weighs less than 10 kilograms, and uses less energy than a cell phone charger, according to a paper published on April 14 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. At a push of a button, can automatically create potable drinking water that exceeds the World Health Organization’s water quality standards.
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“Even a kindergarten student can carry and use the desalination unit,” Junghyo Yoon, a research scientist in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT and co-author of the paper, told The Daily Beast. “[Ease of use] was one of the main motivations of creating the device.”
The device doesn’t rely on any filters like traditional desalination machines. Instead, it zaps the water with electric currents to remove minerals such as salt particles from the water. Due to its portability and the lack of filters that need to be replaced, it has a wide range of applications including being sent to seaside communities, climate catastrophe refugees, or even doomsday preppers, according to Yoon.
“My team and I have been working on desalination technology for more than ten years now,” Jongyoon Han, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and of biological engineering at MIT and lead author of the paper, told The Daily Beast. “This particular technology went through many different iterations and finally we reached a milestone of a system that can be demonstrated.”
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